Craft + Artisans

Yesterday I watched a great Ted talk by Tracey Chevalier called Finding the Story Behind the Painting – the link to watch it is above :-

I have always visited art galleries and felt slightly like I’m not sure what I should be looking for. Is it the composition, colours, the story or meaning behind the artwork? And with so many images to study I find myself skipping some paintings after 20 minutes or so and then feeling like a failure and that I mustn’t appreciate art or understand it like most of the people I see deep in thought and discussion.

When doing my own artwork I am often find a block or I’m not sure what I am trying to say through my work.

Then I watched this Ted Talk by Tracy Chevalier. Tracy’s approach to viewing pieces of art and in particular how to read art when in galleries and museums is a break through for me. Firstly Tracy advises to walk quite quickly around the gallery and pick out the pieces that call out to you. Then go back through the gallery back to those artworks and study them, why do they call out to you? what are they saying? what is the story?

Tracy goes onto share her favourite pieces of artwork, one in particular is the “Girl with a Pearl Earring” by Johannes Vermeer, 1665. She doesn’t exactly know why she likes the image, but that there is something in the girls eyes that calls out to her. So much so that Tracy creates a whole story around the girl, why is she looking like that, why she looking wistfully or is it sadness? The end result is a novel based on Tracy’s fictional story of the Girl with A Pearl Earring which was then made into a movie featuring Scarlett Johansson and Colin Firth 2003.

Immediately after watching the Ted Talk I watched this film. I am now filled with a whole new perspective to viewing art and creating work.

I hope you find this post inspirational and if you haven’t watched Girl with a Pearl Earring I definitely suggest a watch.

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I have a thing with windows. Every house, building, warehouse, barge boat, whatever it may be, I firstly look and study the windows of the buildings.

In this post I am going to try and suggest some reasons why.

First reason. Windows act as picture frames into peoples lives. So perhaps the allure is that windows act as frames, framing the real life art of people living. Of their crafted spaces, a peep into someones life, studio, workplace. Its interesting also how windows and their sills are dressed up. Vases of flowers, picture frames of loved ones, curtains and drapes, blinds and rollers.

Second reason. The saying that eyes are the windows to souls. Why do houses look almost like faces, do you ever notice that? The same with cars and vehicles. We seem to build and create buildings with characters, with a soul, with a certain look. Buildings are different in say NYC to those in Paris. Cottages in Wales are very different to minimal Scandinavian homes. But one trend they all seem to have is a personality, a character, a face. Pretty and worn vs sharp and industrial, slick and modern vs coastal boathouse.

Third reason. Imagine a room with no window? No-one likes a room with no window, we all need natural light to shine through.

I’m unsure to the exact reason why I love windows. This weekend I’l looking to buy some some new curtains to dress mine up – it feels like I am buying eye makeup for my house!

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As my readers may know, my blog is all about spending time well and treating people well. It is about cherishing our time with each other making the world a more beautiful place to live in through our everyday actions and endeavours.

My passion is helping to convey this idea whether through words or visuals. My background is in fashion and in particular fashion branding. Fashion Branding is all about conveying a lifestyle and the essence of a brand through the story telling of visuals, words and sounds.

Time Consumed is not a fashion brand but more so a movement and I look to convey this idea through research, reading and through visuals. This blog looks to document my journey to achieve this and I hope my readers will continue to like, follow and guide me along this path.

Thank you so much and happy weekend.

PS the featured image is some designs that I am doing for a good friend who is looking to launch a mens-grooming line 🙂

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Good morning – Monday morning again and I am writing to you with my 6am cup of coffee before getting up for work. Todays post comes to you after reading a post this morning from thrive.com about “The Life Changing Habit of Keeping a Journal.

I have always thought that blogging is almost like keeping a journal – a journal that you share to the entire world. This is not the same as a personal journal I guess as traditionally that is used to put down all your personal thoughts and not to be shown!

The one real part of blogging that I struggle with (however this is part of the reason I started blogging was to practice my writing technique and my story telling with words. My strongest skill is story telling through pictures and sketching.

My conclusion is to start to incorporate more of my sketching into my blog posts, perhaps at the end of each post? To put down and share ideas.

I love this quote by Michael Hyatt who says “What happens to us is not as important as the meaning we assign to it. Journaling helps sort this out.” Journals give you a record of the progress you’ve made toward your goals to keep you motivated in the long slog of actually reaching them.

If you would like to read this fascinating blog post by Arianna Huffington on thrive.com please visit the link is below. Apparently all the great geniuses kept a blog including Einstein, Leonardo De Vinci and Winston Churchill – it must of worked for them so hopefully it will work for us!